The effect of vector meson decays on dihadron fragmentation functions

Abstract

Dihadron Fragmentation Functions (DFF) provide a vast amount of information on the intricate details of the parton hadronization process. Moreover, they provide a unique access to the “clean” extraction of nucleon transversity parton distribution functions in semi inclusive deep inelastic two hadron production process with a transversely polarised target. On the example of the u → π+π−, we analyse the properties of unpolarised DFFs using their probabilistic interpretation. We use both the NJL-jet hadronization model and PYTHIA 8.1 event generator to explore the effect of the strong decays of the vector mesons produced in the quark hadronization process on the pseudoscalar DFFs. Our study shows that, even though it is less probable to produce vector mesons in the hadronization process than pseudo scalar mesons of the same charge, the products of their strong decays drastically affect the DFFs for pions because of the large combinatorial factors. Thus, an accurate description of both vector meson production and decays are crucial for theoretical understanding of DFFs.